Her flamboyance, Miles increasingly felt, was an effective act, meant to be viewed at a distance like stage makeup, to dazzle her troops. At the right range, it might work rather well, like the popular Barrayaran general of his grandfather's generation who'd gained visibility by carrying a plasma rifle like a swagger stick. Usually uncharged, Miles had heard privately—the man wasn't stupid. Or a Vorish ensign who wore a certain antique dagger at every opportunity. A trademark, a banner. A calculated bit of mass psychology. Cavilo's public persona pushed the envelope of that strategy, surely. Was she scared inside, knowing herself for overextended? You wish.
Alas, after a dose of Cavilo, one thought of Cavilo, fogging one's tactical calculations. Focus, Ensign. Had she forgotten Victor Rotha? Had Gregor concocted some bullshit explanation to account for their Pol Station encounter? Gregor seemed to be feeding Cavilo skewed facts—or were they? Maybe there really was a loathed proposed bride, and Gregor had not trusted Miles enough to mention it. Miles began to regret being quite so acerbic to Gregor.
His thoughts were still running like a hyped-up rat on an exercise wheel, spinning to nowhere, when the door code-lock beeped again. Yes, he would fake cooperation, promise anything, if only she'd give him a chance to check on Gregor.
Cavilo appeared with a soldier in tow. The man looked vaguely familiar—one of the arresting goons? No . . .
The man ducked his head through the cell door, stared at Miles a moment in bemusement, and turned to Cavilo.
"Yeah, that's him, all right. Admiral Naismith, of the Tau Verde Ring war. I'd recognize the little runt anywhere." He added aside to Miles, "What are you doing here, sir?"
Miles mentally transmuted the man's tan-and-blacks to grey and white. Yeah. There'd been several thousand mercenaries involved in the Tau Verde war. They all had to have gone somewhere.
"Thank you, that will be all, Sergeant." Cavilo took the man by the arm and firmly pulled him away. The non-com's fading advice drifted back down the cell bay, "You ought to try and hire him, ma'am, he's a military genius. . . ."
Cavilo reappeared after a moment, to stand in the aperture with her hands on her hips and her chin outthrust in exasperated disbelief. "How many people are you, anyway?"
Miles opened his hands and smiled weakly. Just as he'd been about to talk his way out of this hole . . .
"Huh." She spun on her heel, the closing door cutting off her sputter.
Now what? He'd slam his fist into the wall in frustration, but the wall was sure to slam back with greater devastation.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
However, all three of his identities were granted an exercise period that afternoon. A small onboard gymnasium was cleared for his exclusive use. He studied the setup sharply for the hour as he tried out various pieces of equipment, checking distances and trajectories to guarded exits. He could see a couple of ways Ivan might succeed in jumping a guard and making a break for it. Not fragile, short-legged Miles. For a moment, he found himself actually wishing he had Ivan along.
On the way back to Cell 13 with his escort, Miles passed another prisoner being checked in at the guard station. He was a shambling, wild-eyed man, his blond hair damped to brown with sweat. Miles's shock of recognition was the greater for the changes it had to encompass. Oser's lieutenant. The bland-faced killer was transformed.
He wore only grey trousers, his torso was bare. Livid shock-stick marks dappled his skin. Recent hypospray injection points marched like little pink paw prints up his arm. He mumbled continuously through wet lips, shivered and giggled. Just coming back from interrogation, it seemed.
Miles was so startled he reached over to grasp the man's left hand, to check—yes, there were his own scabbed-over teeth marks across the knuckles, souvenir of last week's fight at the Triumph's air lock, across the system. The silent lieutenant wasn't silent anymore.
Miles's guards motioned him sternly along. Miles almost tripped, staring back over his shoulder till the door of Cell 13 sighed shut, imprisoning him once more.
What are you doing here? That had to be the most-asked, least-answered question in the Hegen Hub, Miles decided. Though he bet the Oseran lieutenant had answered it—Cavilo must command one of the sharpest counter-intelligence departments in the Hub. How fast had the Oseran mercenary traced Miles and Gregor here? How soon had Cavilo's people spotted him and picked him up? The marks on his body were not over a day old. . . .
Most important question of all, had the Oseran come to Vervain Station as part of a general, systematic sweep, or had he followed specific clues—was Tung compromised? Elena arrested? Miles shuddered, and paced frenetically, helplessly. Have I just killed my friends?
So, what Oser knew, Cavilo now knew, the whole silly mix of truth, lies, rumors and mistakes. So the identification of Miles as "Admiral Naismith" hadn't necessarily come from Gregor as Miles had first assumed. (The Tau Verde veteran had clearly been scrounged up as an unbiased cross-check.) If Gregor was systematically withholding information from her, Cavilo would now realize it. If he was withholding anything. Maybe he was in love by now. Miles's head throbbed, feeling on the verge of exploding.
* * *
The guards came for him in the middle of the night-cycle, and made him dress. Interrogation at last, eh? He thought of the drooling Oseran, and cringed. He insisted on washing up, and adjusted every burr-seam and cuff of his Ranger fatigues with slow deliberation, till the guards began to shift impatiently and tap fingers suggestively on shock-sticks. He too would shortly be a drooling fool. On the other hand, what could he possibly say under fast-penta at this point that could make things worse? Cavilo had it all, as far as he could tell. He shrugged off the guards' grasps, and marched out of the brig between them with all the forlorn dignity he could muster.
They led him through the night-dimmed ship and exited a lift-tube at something marked "G-Deck." Miles snapped alert. Gregor was supposed to be around here somewhere. . . . They arrived at an otherwise-blank cabin door marked 10A, where the guards beeped the code-lock for permission to enter. The door slid aside.
Cavilo sat at a comconsole desk, a pool of light in the somber room making her blond-white hair gleam and glow. They had arrived at the commander's personal office, apparently, adjoining her quarters. Miles strained his eyes and ears for signs of the Emperor. Cavilo was fully dressed in her neat fatigues. At least Miles wasn't the only one going short on sleep these days; he fancied optimistically that she looked a little tired. She placed a stunner out on her desk, ominously ready to her right hand, and dismissed the guards. Miles craned his neck, looking for the hypospray. She stretched, and sat back. The scent of her perfume, a greener, sharper, less musky scent than she'd worn as Livia Nu, sublimated from her white skin and tickled Miles's nose. He swallowed.
"Sit down, Lord Vorkosigan."
He took the indicated chair, and waited. She watched him with calculating eyes. The insides of his nostrils began to itch abominably. He kept his hands down, and still. The first question of this interview would not catch him with his fingers shoved up his nose.
"Your Emperor is in terrible trouble, little Vor lord. To save him, you must return to the Oseran Mercenaries, and retake them. When you are back in command, we will communicate further instructions."
Miles boggled. "Danger from what?" he choked. "You?"
"Not at all! Greg is my best friend. The love of my life, at last. I'd do anything for him. I'd even give up my career." She smirked piously. Miles's lip curled in repelled response; she grinned. "If any other course of action occurs to you besides following your instructions to the letter, well . . . it could land Greg in unimaginable troubles. At the hands of worse enemies."
Worse than you? Not possible . . . is it? "Why do you want me in charge of the Dendarii Mercenaries?"
"I can't tell you." Her eyes widened, positively sparkling at her private, ironic joke. "It's a surprise."
"What would you give me to support this enterprise?"
"Transportation to Aslund
Station."
"What else? Troops, guns, ships, money?"
"I'm told you could do it with your wits alone. This I wish to see."
"Oser will kill me. He's already tried once."
"That's a chance I must take."
I really like that "I," lady. "You mean me to be killed," Miles deduced. "What if I succeed instead?" His eyes were starting to water; he sniffed. He would have to rub his madly itching nose soon.
"The key of strategy, little Vor," she explained kindly, "is not to choose a path to victory, but to choose so that all paths lead to a victory. Ideally. Your death has one use; your success, another. I will emphasize that any premature attempt to contact Barrayar could be very counterproductive. Very."
A nice aphorism on strategy; he'd have to remember that one. "Let me hear my marching orders from my own supreme commander, then. Let me talk to Gregor."
"Ah. That will be your reward for success."
"The last guy who bought that line got shot in the back of his head for his credulity. What say we save steps, and you just shoot me now?" He blinked and sniffed, tears now running down the inside of his nose.
"I don't wish to shoot you." She actually batted her eyelashes at him, then straightened, frowning. "Really, Lord Vorkosigan, I hardly expected you to dissolve into tears."
He inhaled; his hands made a helpless pleading gesture. Startled, she tossed him a handkerchief from her breast pocket. A green-scented handkerchief. Without other recourse, he pressed it to his face.
"Stop crying, you cowar—" Her sharp order was interrupted by his first, mighty sneeze, followed by a rapid volley of repeats.
"I'm not crying, you bitch, I'm allergic to your goddamn perfume!" Miles managed to choke out between paroxysms.
She held her hand to her forehead and broke into giggles; real ones, not mannered ploys for a change. The real, spontaneous Cavilo at last; he'd been right, her sense of humor was vile. "Oh, dear," she gasped. "This gives me the most marvelous idea for a gas grenade. A pity I'll never . . . ah, well."
His sinuses throbbed like kettle drums. She shook her head helplessly, and tapped out something on her comconsole.
"I think I had best speed you on your way, before you explode," she told him.
Bent over in his seat wheezing, his water-clouded gaze fell on his brown felt slippers. "Can I at least have a pair of boots for this trip?"
She pursed her lips in a moment of thought. " . . . No," she decided. "It will be more interesting to see you carry on just as you are."
"In this uniform, on Aslund, I'll be like a cat in a dog suit," he protested. "Shot on sight by mistake."
"By mistake . . . on purpose . . . goodness, you're going to have an exciting time." She keyed the door lock open.
He was still sneezing and gasping as the guards came in to take him away. Cavilo was still laughing.
* * *
The effects of her poisonous perfume took half an hour to wear off, by which time he was locked in a tiny cabin aboard an inner-system ship. They had boarded via a lock on the Kurin's Hand; he hadn't even set foot on Vervain Station again. Not a chance of a break for it.
He checked out the cabin. Its bed and lavatory arrangements were highly reminiscent of his last cell. Space duty, hah. The vast vistas of the wide universe, hah. The glory of the Imperial Service—un-hah. He'd lost Gregor. . . . I may be small, but I screw up big because I'm standing on the shoulders of GIANTS. He tried pounding on the door and screaming into the intercom. No one came.
It's a surprise.
He could surprise them all by hanging himself, a briefly attractive notion. But there was nothing up high to hook his belt on.
All right. This courier-type ship was swifter than the lumbering freighter in which he and Gregor had taken three days to cross the system last time, but it wasn't instantaneous. He had at least a day and a half to do some serious thinking, he and Admiral Naismith.
It's a surprise. God.
* * *
An officer and a guard came for him, very close to the time Miles estimated they would arrive back at Aslund Station's defense perimeter. But we haven't docked yet. This seems premature. His nervous exhaustion still responded to a shot of adrenaline; he inhaled, trying to clear his frenzy-fogged brain back to alertness again. Much more of this, though, and no amount of adrenaline would do him any good. The officer led him through the short corridors of the little ship to Nav and Com.
The Ranger captain was present, leaning over the communication console manned by his second officer. The pilot and flight engineer were busy at their stations.
"If they board, they'll arrest him, and he'll be automatically delivered as ordered," the second officer was saying.
"If they arrest him, they could arrest us too. She said to plant him, and she didn't care if it was head or feet first. She didn't order us to get ourselves interned," said the captain.
A voice from the comm; "This is the picket ship Ariel, Aslund Navy Contract Auxiliary, calling the C6-WG out of Vervain Hubside Station. Cease accelerating, and clear your portside lock for boarding for pre-docking inspection. Aslund Station reserves the right to deny you docking privileges if you fail to cooperate in pre-docking inspection." The voice took on a cheery tone, "I reserve the right to open fire if you don't stand and deliver in one minute. That's enough stalling, boys." The voice, once gone ironic, was suddenly intensely familiar. Bel?
"Cease accelerating," the captain ordered, and motioned the second to close the comm channel. "Hey you, Rotha," he called to Miles. "Come over here."
So I'm "Rotha" again. Miles mustered a smarmy smile, and sidled closer. He eyed the viewer, striving to conceal his hungry interest. The Ariel? Yes, there it was in the vid display, the sleek Illyrican-built cruiser . . . did Bel Thorne still command her? How can I get myself onto that ship?
"Don't throw me out there!" Miles protested urgently. "The Oserans are after my hide. I swear, I didn't know the plasma arcs were defective!"
"What plasma arcs?" asked the captain.
"I'm an arms dealer. I sold them some plasma arcs. Cheap. Turns out they had a tendency to lock on overload and blow their user's hand off. I didn't know, I got them wholesale."
The Ranger captain's right hand opened and closed in sympathetic identification. He rubbed his palm unconsciously on his trousers, back of his plasma arc holster. He studied Miles, frowning sourly. "Head first it is," he said after a moment. "Lieutenant, you and the corporal take this little mutant to the portside personnel lock, pack him in a bod-pod, and eject him. We're going home."
"No," said Miles weakly, as they each took an arm. Yes! He dragged his feet, careful not to offer enough resistance to risk his bones. "You're not going to space me . . . !" The Ariel, my God . . .
"Oh, the Aslunder merc'll pick you up," said the captain. "Maybe. If they don't decide you're a bomb, and try to set you off in space with plasma fire from their ship or something." Smiling slightly at this vision, he turned back to the comm, and intoned in a bored traffic-control sing-song, "Ariel, ah, this is the C6-WG. We chose to, ah, change our filed flight plan and return to Vervain Station. We therefore have no need for pre-docking inspection. We are going to leave you a, ah, small parting gift, though. Quite small. What you choose to do with it is your problem. . . ."
The door to Nav and Com closed behind them. A few meters of corridor and a sharp turn brought Miles and his handlers to a personnel hatch. The corporal held Miles, who struggled; the lieutenant opened a locker and shook out a bod-pod.
The bod-pod was a cheap inflatable life-support unit designed to be entered in seconds by endangered passengers, suitable either for pressurization emergencies or abandoning ship. They were also dubbed idiot-balloons. They required no knowledge to operate because they had no controls, merely a few hours of recycleable air and a locator-beeper. Passive, foolproof, and not recommended for claustrophobes, they were very cost-effective in saving lives—when adequate pick-up ships arrived in time.
Miles
emitted a realistic wail as he was stuffed into the bod-pod's dank, plastic-smelling interior. A jerk of the rip cord, and it sealed and inflated automatically. He had a brief, horrible flashback to the mud-sunken bubble-shelter on Kyril Island, and choked back a real scream. He was tumbled as his captors rolled the pod into the air lock. A whoosh, a thump, a lurch, and he was free-falling in pitch darkness.
The spherical pod was little more than a meter in diameter. Miles, half-doubled-up, felt around, his stomach and inner ear protesting the spin imparted by the ejecting kick outward, till his shaking fingers found what he hoped was a cold-light tube. He squeezed it, and was rewarded with a nauseous greenish glow.
The silence was profound, broken only by the tiny hiss of the air recycler and his ragged breathing. Well . . . it's better than the last time somebody tried to shove me out an air lock. He had several minutes in which to imagine all the possible courses of action the Ariel might take instead of picking him up. He had just discarded skin-crawling anticipation of the ship opening fire on him in favor of abandonment to cold dark asphyxiation, when he and his pod were wrenched by a tractor beam.
The tractor beam's operator, clearly, had ham hands and palsy, but after a few minutes of juggling, the return of gravity and outside sound reassured Miles he'd been safely stowed in a working air lock. The swish of the inner door, garbled human voices. Another moment, and the idiot balloon began to roll. He yelped loudly, and curled up into a protective ball to roll with the flow till the motion stopped. He sat up, and took a deep breath, and tried to straighten his uniform.
Muffled thumps against the bod-pod's fabric. "Somebody in there?"
"Yeah!" Miles called back.
"Just a minute . . ."
Squeaks, clinks., and a rending grind, as the seals were broken. The bod-pod began to collapse as the air sighed out. Miles fought his way clear of its folds, and stood, shakily, with all the gracelessness and indignity of a newly hatched chick.
He was in a small cargo bay. Three grey-and-white-uniformed soldiers stood in a circle around him, aiming stunners and nerve-disruptors at his head. A slim officer with captain's insignia leaned with one foot on a canister, watching Miles emerge.